


kids like us walk like nothing’s wrong

by anupturnedboat



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: And So Does Everyone Else, Angst and Feels, Friends With Benefits, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Lydia Martin & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, Lydia-centric, RIP Allison Argent, Stiles Stilinski Has Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-23
Updated: 2014-09-23
Packaged: 2018-02-18 13:23:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2349923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anupturnedboat/pseuds/anupturnedboat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They do rituals, mop up blood, and make up lies.</p><p>Everyone always says they’re fine.</p><p>Post S4</p>
            </blockquote>





	kids like us walk like nothing’s wrong

The thing about wounds is that you never know how they are going to turn out.

Not when you are screaming or running or bleeding.

Some scars fade, the edges a faint white crescent, like the one at Stiles’s hairline from the night he crashed his car and then rescued the others from Jennifer Blake.

Lydia has three white lines etched into her skin thanks to Peter Hale. She runs her fingers over them in the shower and wonders how long they’ll mark her as this.

They don’t talk about the ones that Scott left on the back of her neck (or Stiles' matching set).

Some scars go deeper; those are the ones that you can only see if you get turned inside out.

In the fall they go back to school, play lacrosse, study for tests and (still) chase bad things into the night. They do rituals, mop up blood, and make up lies.

Everyone always says they’re fine.

It’s instinct, a reflex geared towards survival. So they laugh and fight and pretend and worry, and move on – except sometimes they get turned inside out.

It is one year that has gone by and they still never say her name, but today Lydia holds Scotts hand, the first syllable on the tip of her tongue. After a while, Stiles silently steps up next to her clutching a pretty bouquet of flowers. He places them near her headstone, and Lydia reaches for his hand, anchoring the three of them there until Scott wordlessly presses a silver arrowhead into her palm. She thinks next year she’ll do the same in return. And they will pass it back and forth every year after that, to balance out the fact that they aren’t saying her name.

They stop for Claudia Stilinski. Erica and Boyd are here too. Lydia says a few words for Aiden, although Derek and Ethan had taken him somewhere else. He should know that someone still cares.

Her heart breaks a little more all over again for Jackson, even though he brought his scars on himself.

It’s hard for them to be around anyone, even those who know them best, on days like this. (Because the longer they do this, the more they are burning scars into the ones they love too).

Tomorrow they will be back to normal, like nothing’s wrong, but tonight Scott tells his mother he is staying at Stiles’, and Stiles tells his father he’s staying at Scotts’.

Lydia leaves her window open, but in the end only Stiles climbs through. Lydia understands - Scott has the kind of scars that are wounds that open and close, open and close.

There are a lot of things you get away with when your parents can’t stand each other, like being alone in a big house with a boy in your room.

He pushes her hair over her shoulder, exposing her neck, and his lips are gentle on the scars there.

They don’t talk about Malia (that’s an entirely different kind of scar).

She wraps his arm around her, flattening out his palm over her heart. They don’t need words, at least not tonight.

His touches are soft and light, and slightly awkward like they might have been before all this darkness, but his lips betray any notions about actually moving on. Hers are going to be ravaged by morning; she can tell. Scars are scars, she thinks, and theirs are sparking in the dim light of her bedroom. He traces secret things (unsettling confessions only she can decipher) onto her skin and when their eyes meet there is a silent agreement to not talk about this, not tomorrow, not ever.

Because tomorrow, they will go back to pretending nothing is wrong.


End file.
